15 Films That Could Decide the 2016 Election

Hollywood is gearing up for the November US 2016 election, and not just with million-dollar donations. Over a dozen films of a political nature have been set for timely distribution to the electorate.

It’s noteworthy that while the majority of the political films released this year work in Hillary’s favor, most of the pro-Hillary films are low in impact due to poor quality, limited distribution, and/or release too far in advance of the election. Among the five highest impact films of 2016 — Snowden, Clinton Cash, Hillary’s America, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, and All the Way — all but one work in favor of Trump, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein.

Released October, 2016

Michael Moore in TrumplandLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Hillary Clinton
Moore’s latest documentary, Michael Moore in Trumpland, was advertised as his “October Surprise,” sure to entirely discredit and derail the candidacy of Donald Trump. The film just premiered in NYC with much fanfare, but even the usual PR blitz could not mask audience disappointment. As the New York Times put it, “If the news that the documentarian Michael Moore was releasing a surprise film called Michael Moore in TrumpLand had you expecting a rollicking, full-force attack on Donald J. Trump, prepare to be disappointed…The film is not an attack on Mr. Trump, but instead a paean to his opponent in the presidential contest, Hillary Clinton.” Worse yet, it’s not even a documentary in the usual sense, but just a 73-minute “comedy act,” i.e., a speech, about how much Michael Moore likes Hillary Clinton. Apparently aware that this is not one of his greatest hits, Moore says he will self-distribute the film on iTunes.

Before the FloodLikely Impact on Election: Low/Medium | Advantage: Hillary Clinton & Jill Stein
In this documentary, directed by Fisher Stevens, Leonardo DiCaprio interviews climate change experts as well as Barack Obama, Pope Francis, and John Kerry — and warns of coming world disaster if climate change is not immediately addressed. Says the Hollywood Reporter: “Flood’s filmmakers are intelligent in their use of the biggest asset they have: Not only do they keep their movie star onscreen, they work hard to tie viewers’ concern for the environment up with his biography.” A film like this can count on the support of critics and media, so it may make a bigger splash than might be expected for a made-for-TV documentary. It will also have a brief theater run in NYC and LA, which could always be expanded if commercially successful.

Released September, 2016

Clinton Inc.Likely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Donald Trump & Gary Johnson
Originally promised to premier in 1,000 theaters nationwide, those plans seem to have been severely scaled back; so far at least it appears to be showing in twenty, mostly in Illinois and Indiana. It’s not clear what happened, as it had quite a lot of good press up front. Says the Daily Mail, “At its heart, ‘Clinton, Inc.’ is a psychological study of the Clintons and what makes them tick.”

SnowdenLikely Impact on Election: Medium | Advantage: Gary Johnson & Jill Stein
Oliver Stone’s biopic of Edward Snowden, conveniently enough entitled Snowden, could be a sleeping giant. The Academy-Award winning documentary on the same subject, Citizenfour, was pretty much a thriller because of so much natural drama and suspense to Snowden’s underlying story; that drama was used to even greater effect by Stone. Of course, given what happened to Snowden, the film doesn’t reflect well on either the Republicans or the Democrats, but it could be a boost for the Libertarians in the 2016 election, as Gary Johnson has already said he is open to a pardon for Snowden. The trailer for Snowden has so far been viewed 10 million times. This incidentally will not be Oliver Stone’s first libertarian film; 25 years ago he made Wild Palms, in which the heroes were…libertarians.

Released August, 2016

Southside With YouLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Hillary ClintonSouthside With You is a cinematic love letter to the Obama administration, and tells the riveting tale of the Obama’s early romance. Per the Chicago Sun-Times review, “One scene depicts the couple at a community organizing meeting, where Barack speaks and the woman then known as Michelle Robinson develops a deeper respect for his intellect.” After hearing Obama talk, who wouldn’t be smitten? A similar love story about Hillary and Bill Clinton, Rodham, has apparently stalled for the moment. Ahem.

Released July, 2016

Clinton CashLikely Impact on Election: High | Advantage: Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, & Jill Stein
This film may have the biggest impact of all, even though it never made it to the theater. Free online, it was viewed 3.5 million times by the end of August, and will likely have been viewed at least 5 million times by the election. And it has scored critical acclaim. Hillary Clinton has alleged that when she and Bill left the White House in 2000, they were “dead broke.” So how then did they end up with $150 million just 16 years later? This documentary, based on the Peter Schweizer book of the same name, follows the money…and finds the path leads to a cabal of suspicious donors, deception, and quite possibly treason. Says the NY Post: “It becomes all too clear how the former first couple went from rags to filthy rich — with the emphasis on filthy.” This film has a great deal of potential to embarrass the Clintons, and could drive even Democrat votes away from Hillary in the 2016 election.

Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic PartyLikely Impact on Election: Medium | Advantage: Donald Trump & Gary Johnson
This documentary was blasted by critics, but they couldn’t stop its meteoric rise–it ended up being the #1 highest-grossing documentary of 2016 (at least as of October). Dinesh D’Souza, who previously made the patriotic film America: Imagine the World Without Her, made this film to rip the lid off of the little-known unseemly history of the Democratic Party. It exposes, among other things, the party’s deep and little-discussed historical association with slavery and eugenics. Although it was a solid success in theaters, one suspects it was mostly seen by conservative faithful and likely will not have changed a lot of minds on the other side of the political spectrum.

Released May, 2016

Under the GunLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Gary Johnson
This one turned out to be a dud, and may even have backfired, as it were, to the advantage of second amendment defenders (e.g., Gary Johnson). Former breakast-television host turned “journalist” Katie Couric made a foray into documentaries this year with the anti-gun salvo Under the Gun. It’s a retrospective on the Sandy Hook massacre, and an implied indictment of gun culture, private gun ownership, and the “gun-nuts” who obstruct progressive gun restrictions. Sadly, the press got hold of an unedited audio recording taken during the interviewing process, and the key “gotcha” moment in the documentary, when gun-advocates can’t seem to give sensible answers to basic questions, didn’t jibe with the unedited audio. The film turned out to be a fraud so transparent that even NPR had to report on it. Subsequently, questions were also raised about gun law violations ironically committed by the makers of the film. When asked about these indictments of the film, Couric made a half-hearted apology and then giggled uncontrollably.

Climate HustleLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Donald TrumpClimate Hustle, is a critical examination of the climate change/global warming movement. While it included some excellent interviews of respected high-caliber skeptics, unfortunately in some ways the film has a somewhat amateurish character and is not likely change many minds. A better documentary on the same subject is: The Great Global Warming Swindle.It was shown for one day only in theaters nationwide, but now appears to only be available on video. It was advertised to a mostly conservative Trump-type audience.

All the WayLikely Impact on Election: Medium | Advantage: Hillary ClintonHBO aired a new film celebrating the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, focusing on his role in civil rights legislation, and leaving out the part about Johnson massively expanding and then incompetently micro-managing the Vietnam War, launching the Great Society, and being an unrepentant racist. It’s another film to support the “Democratic Party as hero” narrative just in time for this year’s election. Johnson was played, to rave reviews, by Bryan Cranston, fresh from his role as Trumbo.

Released April, 2016

ConfirmationLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Hillary Clinton
The new film Confirmation rehashes the Clarence Thomas hearings, just in time for this 2016 election year. To judge by reviews, it has the usual angle. As Mother Jones put it: “Conservatives will hate HBO’s new film on the disgraceful war waged on Anita Hill.” Although it is decidedly supportive to the liberal narrative, and therefore to Hillary Clinton, inasmuch as it was released seven months before the election and only on HBO, its effect will be limited.

Released January, 2016

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of BenghaziLikely Impact on Election: High | Advantage: Donald Trump, Gary Johnson
Hillary “What difference at this point does it make?” Clinton’s worst nightmare–13 Hours is an action-packed thriller about the heroic security team that defended the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, an attack that some say could have been won had U.S. authorities not told security to “stand down” early in the fighting, and could have been prevented altogether had then Secretary of State Clinton earlier heeded warnings that the local situation was deteriorating. Even before it was released it was negatively reviewed (the very fact that it was being made was offensive enough to some); and after the film came out, it continued to take flak. Ordinary people wisely went to see it anyway and were not disappointed. It’s a great action flick, and with a heart. Total sales are headed for $75 million, a cool $25 million more than production costs. This is another film with strong potential to make a difference in the 2016 election.

Released 2015

Where to Invade NextLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Hillary Clinton
Michael Moore returned from long hibernation with the documentary he quietly filmed: Where to Invade Next. Before its release, Moore was coy about the film’s content, hinting that it was about the military-industrial complex. It turned out to be another paean to European welfare states. Much like the social democracy model Moore so loves, the critics loved it but the film itself was a financial disaster, with just $4 million in sales in the first five months.

TruthLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Hillary Clinton
In Truth, Robert Redford (sympathetically) plays Dan Rather in a cinematic telling of Rathergate, that unfortunate moment for the newscaster when he falsely accused Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush of skipping out on his National Guard duty during the Vietnam War, based on documents given to CBS by a former National Guard officer. No one at CBS bothered to authenticate the documents, which were just too glorious to question, especially as they came just two months before the 2004 election; but moments after they went public someone on the internet noticed that the documents were proportionally-spaced exactly in the style Microsoft Word 2004, a little awkward since they had allegedly been produced in 1973. Sadly, apparently no one wanted to watch Redford’s spin on all this, and despite all the media hype it earned an hilarious $2.5 million at the box office.

The Brainwashing of My DadLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Hillary ClintonFox News gets an ungentle treatment in The Brainwashing of My Dad, a documentary warning “of how generations of Americans have been tricked into an angry cult-like devotion to a new conservative lord and savior: Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.” It examines (bitterly) how the filmmaker’s Dad was converted from being a liberal to a conservative as a result of watching Fox. As of June, Box Office lists YTD sales as $7,000. “Dinner’s on me!” said director Jen Senko, then pulling into a Jack in the Box. I think this is also known as “straight to video,” or more likely…youtube.

Trump, What’s the Deal?Likely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Hillary Clinton
GOP-frontrunner Donald Trump is getting “the treatment” from a 25-year-old documentary that never made it to prime time. Apparently when Trump: What’s the Deal? was originally produced, Trump found out that it was a slam-job, so he hinted at legal action and the film was shelved. But now that he is running for office the producers are willing to bear the risk…and this film is getting an unlikely resurrection.

Year of the WomanLikely Impact on Election: Low | Advantage: Hillary Clinton
“A documentary that disappeared more than 40 years ago—available to everyone for the first time here—is a gift to modern-day feminists. It’s belligerent, it’s hilarious, and it reveals exactly what the Clinton campaign is missing.” So gushes the Huffington Post about the 1973 documentary Year of the Woman, a little-known film that has been resurrected from obscurity for its first national distribution a half a decade after it was made. Why the sudden interest? Because, continues the review, “If a Republican wins in 2016, it will not simply mean that a woman has lost. It will mean that many women will lose.”

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In 2018, ten new libertarian films (six narrative films and four documentaries) were identified and are listed below. It’s noteworthy that many of these films were made on a shoestring budget and clawed their way up through sheer merit -- the declining cost of film technology combined with online distribution … Continue Reading

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About Miss Liberty

This site is a collection of films and documentaries of particular interest to libertarians (and those interested in libertarianism). It began as a book, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium, where many of the recommended films were first reviewed. The current collection has grown to now more than double the number in that original list, and it’s growing still.